1. What did you do in 2007 that you'd never done before?Commuted more than five miles away from where I live to get to work every day. I am now a card-carrying member of car culture. And it sucks. And I watched the Bachelor this year for the first time ever. And that sucked too. Wow, way to start off the list all cheery!

2. Did you keep your new years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year?Honey please. I'm living in the now, dude.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?Yes! Babies were shooting out all over the place. Most notably, Neighbor J and B had a sparkly eyed girlie who is now locomoting herself around town via her patented rolling technique, and friends H and J had a little zen baby who looks at you with eyes that say "'whatsa haps?" And lots more babies. All destined to be more mature than I am in a year or two.

4. Did anyone close to you die?No, although it was pretty damn close this year. Too close. That shit was the real deal.

5. What countries did you visit?The good 'ol US of A had to be the only resting place for mine asseth this year. That's ok. Sometimes I think I have spent enough time on a plane in the first 25 years of my life to last me forever. Oh, but I did get to go see Frankenmuth. Which should totally be its own fake German nation.

6. What would you like to have in 2008 that you lacked in 2007?Healthy, healthy loved ones. All of them! I don't want to hear ONE SNEEZE out of the lot of you! Because I have HAD IT. A robot vacuum cleaner would be nice too.

7. What dates from 2007 will remain etched upon your memory?H and R being born, a Most Shocking Day at work (and I am not easily shocked but this one was a doozy which I wish I could tell you about except I would surely get dooced), the day my dad had a stroke, finding out that my sis-in-law has MS, finding out that Nordic Boy's mom has a combination of serious health ailments, the day when my brother went into the hospital (what a pattern this is, huh?), sitting in my parents' back yard with my mom, dad, and Nordic Boy when my dad got out of the hospital and me just soaking in the precious time that we had together, eating cupcakes in the middle of the night with Alli and Map, having an official Librarian Girl and Bio-Girl Day of Fun (much like Joey and Janice's Day of Fun, except, you know, we like each other), getting to see ex-roomie Palindrome for a day or two and playing with my nephew.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?Having a laugh each day, even when things were bad. (You know how the catchphase on Extras that Ricky Gervias always says is "Is she havin' a laugh?" Yeah, that's me. I'm having a laugh.)

9. What was your biggest failure?I stopped categorizing things I do as failures a long time ago. That shit is toxic. Not doing that.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?No, I made it through another year in tact.

11. What was the best thing you bought?A washer and dryer. Not an iPod, or a trip, or an exciting pair of shoes, but a washer and dryer. God I'm old.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?Did I tell you about the time I didn't whine about being cold? Ok, ok, spotlight off of me. I had a couple of friends who were just the most kick-ass support system ever when all the family health crises were going down. Most notably K and Bio-Girl. Nordic Boy and I were barely functioning for a while there and you two rocked the hizzy. And everyone else that helped us out too. So much kindness out there.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?World events certainly can make my mood go over into the bad place.

14. Where did most of your money go?Mortgage, mortgage, mortgage. Oh, and um, my mortgage.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?Ok, I am starting to sound like a one-note Sally, but I was obviously excited when my Dad started to pull through. On a more superficial note, I was also excited by Lost and Battlestar Galactica (shut it, I know it's geeky), the final Harry Potter book (geek points going ever higher), finding a really great pair of jeans, and hosting Alli and Map in my town.

16. What song will always remind you of 2007?Stronger by Kanye West (which I could totally spit out word for word for you which you would think I wouldn't be advertising but hey, whatevs). And What Ever Happened by the Strokes. Neither of these have anything at all to do with what actually happened in '07. I just heard these two songs a lot.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:a) happier or sadder? Happier, baby.b) thinner or fatter? Who the hell is counting? Not me.c) richer or poorer? About the same, I think. Maybe a tad richer.

18. What do you wish you'd done more of?I haven't been arting as much as I would have liked during the year.

19. What do you wish you'd done less of?Worrying.

20. How will you be spending Christmas?I spent it with Nordic Boy and blood-sucking zombies and Will Smith.

21 is missing. Couldn't be bothered to stick around, apparently.

22. Did you fall in love in 2007?Every damn day.

23. How many one-night stands?365 in a row. What a hoochie!

24. What was your favorite TV program?Battlestar Galactica.

25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?What kind of jacked up question is this?? The yearly hatred question? I'd have to say that my hatred levels are all about the same as they were last year.

26. What was the best book you read?Asking a librarian this question is like kicking him/her in the mouth. OUCH! I plead the fifth.

27. What was your greatest musical discovery?I re-discovered Radio Department this year. I loved them and then sort of forgot about them. Now the love, it be renewed.

28. What did you want and get?Unconditional love.

29. What did you want and not get?A nice yard.

30. What was your favorite film of this year?I didn't have one. Movies weren't really grabbing me this year. I liked the Queen with Helen Mirren in it.

31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?Sick, weilding tissues, hacking up a lung, cancelling birthday plans, and mad as HELL. I felt like I was turning older than dirt.

32.What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?I missed out on my annual Oregon beach trip with my best pals this year. I wish we would have gone because the year just didn't seem right without it.

33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2007?Head to toe fabulous, of course. Same as every year.

34. What kept you sane?Who says I was kept sane? Clearly, meme-question-writer, you don't know me.

35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?Who did I "fancy?" Oh, I don't know. Jonathan Rhys Myers is a cutie.

36. What political issue stirred you the most?Iraq, of course. The situation in Myanmar. Now Pakistan.

37. Who did you miss?Too many people to name, sadly. This meme is starting to bum me out.

38. Who was the best new person you met?Well, the two new babies in my life are right up there. And when you ask "best NEW person," they are definitely that. New people, that is.

39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2007:Dancing around and singing nonsense songs can always cheer you up in a pinch.

40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:"And you were not a dot dot dotwaiting for me to complete youand it was like I just forgotto measure everything that I do"

Final Thoughts:2007 was a kick in the crotch and walk in the park all at the same time. I smiled a lot and worried a lot, and I tried to grow up and I felt about a hundred years old too. 2007 was just more of my life and that life is pretty damn good. I can't wait for more. Bring it!

a) have a fear and hatred of cold weather the likes of which is so out of control that all of your friends and family tell you that you need psychological treatment because you whine so goddamn much about it; and

b) have the day off although you just had one on account of it being Jesus' birthday; and

c) don't have your gloves, hat and scarf with you; and

d) are wearing shoes that can not in any way be described as "weatherproof" or "practical"; and

e) are witnessing icy rain pelt down in a sideways fashion?

You decide, as you're driving back from the store, that you need to go to the plant nursery, of course. The outdoor plant nursery. Just for the pure joy of being completely underdressed for December in Seattle and to see just how wet one can get while running around trying to find a good deal on some plants. And to remember with nostalgia what it was like to not be able to feel your hands and then to feel them painfully thaw out just as you did as a child growing up in Michigan. And to watch a droplet of moisture actually freeze up on the end of your beloved's nose as he tries to pick out a lovely evergreen shrub before it gets too dark. And to experience what a huge nursery is like when there is not one other person there. Even the people who work there are huddled inside. Buncha wusses.

You do this because you have a coupon for this nursery that expires on December 29. And the savings are too great to pass up. And even as you curse your parents for making you so pathologically frugal, you run around the nursery just the same, milking the coupon for all it's worth, even though the experience is making you seriously consider peeing in your pants just to feel a few seconds of warmth in your nether regions which you fear may never have feeling again.

At the end of it all, you have some new winter plants, at a STEAL of a price, and a compliment that you never thought you would hear.Nordic Boy: (on the way home) Wow. You didn't even whine once. That WHOLE TIME.

At the close of 2007, this is the biggest statement of progress one could make about me. I'm so proud.

I have only posted 7 times this month. After the post-a-day binge of November, I have gone on some kind of crazy posting-fast for I'm not sure what reason. So although I am not much of a New Year's Resolution kind of lady, I am going to give myself until the first of the year to get my shit together and post more come 2008.

I hope you all had some days off of work this week. As far as I am concerned, that is the best part about this time of year. Well, that and the cookies. I was going to tell you all about my existential feelings about the Christmas holiday but then I realized that the liklihood that you all would give a flying figgy pudding about that is pretty slim.

So instead of doing that, I'll tell you what I did on Christmas.

1. Nordic Boy and I are not big Christmas celebrators. In order to explain this further I would have to go into that existential Christmas feelings thing I was talking about before, so don't ask. We don't give each other presents or anything like that, usually. This year, we decided we would exchange a couple of things. Small things, no wrapping required. I got a pop culture crossword book (score!) and a pair of earrings from my favorite handmade store. He got a whole mess of socks and some new pens, the type of which I know he likes to use on his blueprints for work. Nordic Boy loves socks. And pens. We were both genuinely overjoyed with our gifts. They were the kind of gifts that only we would have gotten for each other. What a coupla geeks.

2. We stayed in our pajamas and read books on the couch while sharing a blanket until lunch time.

3. Nordic Boy made us his famed grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch and we watched the snow fall outside of our window.

4. At 1pm, while still in our pajamas, one of us said "let's go to a movie!" We got ready in five minutes, jumped in our car, and went to the movie theater to see what was playing. We ended up with tickets to "I am Legend" which started at 1:30.

If I had to describe Nordic Boy with a list of adjectives, one of the top things I would say about him is that he is patient. I think this is part of what makes him so good at designing and building stuff. He takes his time to think it through, and he never gets frustrated with the process. As obstacles or problems arise, he just deals with them as they come, and he doesn't have that impulse that so many people have (ahem, cough cough, ME) to hurry up and be done with something. He does things wholly for the process, not rushing toward the result. Other qualities that I think of as quintessentially him (thoroughness, thoughtfulness, craftsmanship) are secondary- I don't think he would have these other things if he wasn't the poster child for patience.

Hey, remember that Guns N Roses song? Patience? Am I remembering it wrong, or is there a part to that song where Axel Rose just sort of lets out this long note where he's not really saying anything? Sort of an aaaahh-eeeeeh-aahhhh-eeeeeeh-aaaaah sound? Am I totally hallucinating that?

Anywho. Nordic Boy and I had this conversation last night, and after it was over, I laughed until I wanted to die, it hurt so bad. And I am walking around today, and it is STILL FUNNY. I keep cracking myself up over it. It may be one of those stories where you had to be there, or you have to really know Nordic Boy and me in person to really get how gut-busting funny it is, but what the heck. I'm telling you anyway.

Nordic Boy was watching "Ask This Old House" last night, and I was doing a crossword. I happened to look up, and there weren't any familiar faces on the screen. No Norm, no Kevin, no Tom, no Roger. It was some random guy I had never seen before, doing the project. I was about to ask who they were, but then the scene changed and there was Norm and Kevin and the whole familiar gang again.

Me: Who was that guy?Nordic Boy: That was the electrician.Me: (thinking that he wasn't understanding that I was referring to the guy who was on the screen a second ago, and not the guy who was on the screen now) But who was that other guy?Nordic Boy: The electrician. He's not on here as regularly.Me: (Still thinking he wasn't getting who I was talking about). No, not this guy. The guy before. Who was that guy?Nordic Boy: He was the electrician. Not on every time. You probably just didn't recognize him.Me: The other one. The one BEFORE. Who was he?Nordic Boy: He was the electrician.Me: The one in the BLUE SHIRT. Who was he?Nordic Boy: He was the electrician.Me: The one with the blue shirt?Nordic Boy: Yep. He was the electrician.Me: Not Roger (on the screen now). The one from before. The one with the DARK blue shirt.Nordic Boy: He was the electrician.

I am not even kidding you guys. This entire conversation, Nordic Boy knew exactly who I was referring to, and he answered my question. And I kept, like a frickin' moron, re-asking it. Thinking he wasn't with me. Clarifying my question for him. Re-clarifying it. Oh, he was with me alright. He was with me from the first five seconds of the conversation. And yet. His voice never wavered. He never sounded the least bit exasperated by my vitriolic badgering. He never went to the place of "OH MY GOD YOU GODDAMN LUNATIC. I KNOW WHO YOU MEAN. HE'S THE MOTHERSUCKING ELECTRICIAN NOW STOP ASKING ME." He answered it each time, calmly, lovingly. No problem.

This went on for a few more rounds. He never made me feel like an ass, although clearly, well. Yeah.

When I finally caught up to this conversation I had been having, where he had said to me about twenty gajillion times that "he is the electrician," I realized how insane this was. And how patient he is. And his level of patience was just so FUNNY. How long would he have kept working with me, his slow-witted lover? How many times would he have sublimely informed me of the dark blue shirted electrician? 20? 30? I'm almost sad that I caught on, because now we'll never know.

I laughed about that all night last night. And today. As I washed my face and he brushed his teeth I would bring it back up. "So what you're saying is, that guy was the electrician?" and that would start me off laughing all over again.

The year is winding down and so all you are going to see from all sides is Attack of the Year's Recaps. There will be countdowns aplenty and people summing up the year and pontificating about the best songs, the worst shows, the most fascinating people, the most intriguing artisanal cheeses, the top-rated beard groomers, and the must-have nun-habits of 2007. And there will be lots of bloggers tagging other bloggers with year-end recap memes, and although I tecnnically have not yet been tagged, I am anticipating that I will so I am going to declare myself tagged. I should have thought of this technique a long time ago. This way, when I wasn't picked for the dodgeball team in middle school, I coulda just said "eff you, effers. I pick myself for your team. Deal with that."

Two things about that little imaginary anecdote there.

1. I used to get picked pretty quickly for dodgeball. Not first, but somewhere in the front of the middle. So I didn't have that whole picked-last trauma that everyone else seems to have. I have never understood that mathematically- how can SO MANY people have picked-last trauma? If everyone in the world was getting picked last, then who the hell was getting picked first and second and third?

2. I never would have said "eff you, effers" in middle school. I would have said something way more cussy. I had a rotten mouth back in the day. Sorry Mom.

Then, after I had tagged myself for Recapping Fun, I started to think about my year. And I started to type. And you know what? The really Big Events of my 2007...kind of sucked. I mean, I started to look at it and I realized how Eeyore-like it all sounded. First of all, my beloved Dad got sick. Really super serious scary sick. Second of all, my BFF lived far away and this was the first time in years that I hardly ever saw her, which totally felt weird. Third, another (former) BFF of mine, after a couple of years of The Chop Chop Salad between us, finally bowed out of my life for good and it truly broke my heart in a way that was in the back of my mind for much of my year...

Jeez, Wheezy. What kind of jacked up list is that? Because I hadn't thought my year was so bad until I actually started writing this list out. In fact, I had been under the delusion that the year had been ok. Good, even. Because in my head, on a day to day basis, I think about things a certain way that is actually quite sunny. For example, when my dad was sick, I was really upset, yes, but I was also really full of love for him, and I spent a ton of time thinking about how lucky I am to have had a dad like I do, and how many people I know that don't have such great dads. So in the midst of feeling sad about what was happening, I was also feeling at peace about it, in a weird way. I'm not trying to minimize the worry that I felt. I was scared shitless, believe me. But to sum up the whole event by putting it on a list as "my dad almost died in '07" just doesn't feel like a fair assessment of what happened and how it affected my life.

So I'm going to take myself right back off the Recapping Train. At least in the way that I have seen it done, which makes you have to reduce your life into the really big deal events. My life is more than the really big deal events. It's all the little things that add up to my year.

These are the things that made up my life in 2007. I can't reduce it more than that. Life is, to me, by and large, silly. Day to day weirdo stuff. I'm trying really hard not to use the phrase "fabric of my life" since that will just make everyone think about cotton. But you get what I'm saying right? Life is made of the small things. The unrecappable.

What are the small moments that happened to you in '07? Comment or write about them on your blog.

Me: Ferris Bueller!Nordic Boy: The Secret of My Success!Me: Starring Michael J. Fox!Nordic Boy: Planes, Trains and Automobiles!Me: Oh my god! You are on a roll!Nordic Boy: Teen Wolf!Me: Really? This song was in Teen Wolf?Nordic Boy: And K-9!Me: Oh my god. You didn't just say K-NINE.Nordic Boy: This song is in everything. From the 80s.Me: And you remembered like, all of them.

I guess it's no secret to you that I watch tv. And contrary to what the I-never-watch-tv contingent may say about me (you know them, the folks who are all "who is Scooby Doo? Never heard of him"), I am not a person whose mind is made into a lump of gelantinous mush by my tv intake. My mind is a gelatinous mush for other reasons, like staring at taillights on the freeway for an hour of my day every day, but not because of the evil tube de la boob. On the contrary, I would argue that I am more of a critical thinker because of my tv-watching. I can break down the pre-feminist tropes layered with hegemonic displays of the dysfunctional american work ethic on top of christian litotes with a side of classist paradox that underlies almost any episode of Little House on the Prairie you care to throw at me. It's all in there, and I see it just fine.

In fact, most of the time I think I go too far in the opposite direction- like I am so critical of the stuff I see on tv that I don't believe any of it may actually reflect reality. My first inclination is to think that the crazy marketing people are trying to sell me an idea of what life is like and that that totally doesn't exist. For example, I don't think that most men really find bony ladies attractive. I don't care how many times I see Keira Knightly's skeleton poking through her skin. I am just not buying it. I might be wrong about this, I can admit that. Perhaps there is a whole army of dudes out there that want to feel a nice set of brittle ribs jabbing them when they go in for a little action and I am deluding myself to think otherwise. But I can't help it. It's on tv so it must not be true.

Here's another thing that I find hard to believe that I learned from tv. I had to be proven wrong to make my mind wrap around it. Black Friday. The day after Thanksgiving, when shoppers go buck wild at Big Box stores? I didn't believe in that, for the most part. I mean, I know that that is a Very Busy Day in retail world. I have worked retail during the holidays, so I know. But people getting up at the crack of ass and camping out all night in order to get a deal on a HD tv set? Really? Come on. No way. Don't believe the hype!

Except then I read this account of just such a crazy happening on a blog friend's blog. And I was shown that what I had learned on tv was TRUE. Say what? Next thing you'll be telling me is that the ladies on the Bachelor really ARE in love with Random Dude of the Season, and that Charlie Rose is as stoned on the chronic as he appears.

The other night, when Bio-Girl was here visiting, we were watching Chuck. (Stop making fun of us for watching Chuck. You are talking to someone who watched Dance Fever right up through the Adrian Zmed years so Chuck is small potatoes in my book). And there was this scene, where Chuck (he's supposed to be a geek but in that cute Jimmy Fallon sort of way) is alone in his apartment and his love interest (who is so totally a Marcia Brady/Christine Taylor copy) knocks on the door. As he answers the door, there is Christmas music playing in his apartment. I am talking grandma style, choral, churchy pew Christmas music. The kind where it's all falsetto and you can just see the choir robes and giant hymn books and all the words are sung with a really dropped jaw. So instead of "Oh Come All Ye Faithful," it's "Awww Cahhhhm All Yeh Fethhh foool, jawwwfool ahnd try-uhhhhm-phuuuunt..."

Me: Oh come ON. Look at this marketing of Christmas! Who hangs out at home and listens to granny Christmas music, especially if you're in your 20s, cute, hip, trendy? Who's going to buy that Chuck and the Marcia look-alike are rocking out to this?

Bio-Girl: (Chagrined silence.)

Me: I mean just LISTEN TO THAT. It's totally unbelievable. WHO DOES THAT?

Bio-Girl: Um. I do.

Me: (back pedal, back pedal!) Oh, I mean, hey, you know, I get it. You're a Christmas celebrator person and that's cool. You probably listen to some Nat King Cole or a little Dean Martin, or Burl Ives. I'll even give you Perry Como or Funky Funky Christmas by New Kids on the Block. But I'm talking about that style!! Come ON. "Haaawk the Herrold Ain-jells Si-hing!"

Bio-Girl: Yeah. I know. I listen to that.

Well I'll be a monkey's ball sack. Honestly. I didn't know. I thought this was all bullshittery that the evil tv makers want us to believe in, because it makes us buy more tinsel covered dental floss and stuff.

That's it. TV reflects reality. Lifeguards really do run in slow motion like on Baywatch and Cops really do break out into musical numbers like Cop Rock. It's all happening, people. To see what life is really like, watch the teevee.

And to all you hipster hotties out there who are rocking out to the Grandmaw Tabernacle Choir, I salute you. And I apologize.

You have so been checking back here, day after day, just WAITING for me to finish the Taco story, haven't you? You know you have.

Please. Just let me have my delusions.

I'm going to start Part Deux with a word about Taco's friend, Dave. They were best friends, and in best friend world, it was clear who was who. Taco was the Hot One. Dave was the Funny One. They sat next to each other in choir, and so as I tried to worm my way into Taco's good graces, I also got to know Dave. And shit, you guys. Dave cracked my ass UP. And he was so nice. In retrospect, he is so OBVIOUSLY the one I should have been macking on. But no. I only had eyes for the Tacola.

Anyway. There were days where our choir teacher would make all of us get up and mix up where we sat. The point of it was that he wanted us to be able to sing our part of the harmony, even if we were sitting next to someone who was singing a different part of the harmony right in our ear. One day, when we mixed it up like this, I happened to be sitting next to Dave, in the third row. Taco was way up in the front row. And Taco kept looking over his shoulder at Dave and me, and the two of them kept making these faces at each other. And then Taco started to mouth these words to Dave, right in front of me: "I'm going to ask her! I'm going to ask her." After which Dave and he would look at me significantly. Dave's face was bright red at the mortification of me seeing this exchange. But I didn't care.

Taco was going to ask me something!! I swear to you sparks must have flown out of my panties.

The day passed, and no asking of any kind was happening. Rats! That's ok though. I was willing to wait.

Oh, and I forgot a slight detail. Taco had a girlfriend. The lead soprano in the choir. They had been dating for over a year, which was, in high school terms, like being an old married couple. But this holiday season, there had been trouble in tenor-soprano heaven. They had fought and were in Ross and Rachel land ("on a break.") So see, technically, Taco was free. And now that he was free, he wanted to ASK ME A QUESTION.

That night, our choir was going out as a group to bring food to some needy families in our town. We loaded up our bus with all kinds of presents and food and rode around town dropping the stuff off. And that night, Taco (with Dave in tow most of the time) would not leave me alone. He never quite sat next to me, but he was sitting behind me, or in the seat in front of me. There was more significant looking. Dave cracked jokes in the background, and we all laughed, the three of us. Merry, merry times. I was giddy with excitement.

After the bus ride, we all went over to a friend's house for hot chocolate. I remember it vividly. I was sitting on a couch while Holiday Inn with Fred Astaire and Bing Crosby played on tv in front of me. And who should happen along, but Taco. He plopped down in between me and my friend Donna who was sitting next to me, and turned his head toward her and started to chat it up. And I sat there, with my eyes on the screen, watching Fred Astaire and his crazy Firecracker dance, and thought about the fact that Taco's leg was touching my leg. It was too good to be true. Finally, he stopped talking to Donna and started watching the movie with me. There were people all around, flopped down on the floor and on either side of us. The place was packed. And as we sat there, not talking, he put his hand next to my hand. The backs of our hands were now touching. We're talking skin on skin, people. All we would have had to do was turn our hands over, and we would have been holding hands. But I didn't do it. And neither did he. We just sat there and watched that movie, knuckle to knuckle, with Fred Astaire tapping the shit out of that movie in front of us.

The following week, Dave called me up on the phone. In typical buddy fashion, we talked and joked and laughed, and I didn't have the bawls to ask him about Taco.

Him: What are you doing right now? You hungry?Me: Totally. You?Him: Yeah. Let's go get something to eat.

Awesome. Time for me to grill the best friend about the knuckle-make-out that had gone on and what it all meant. Dave was so easy to talk to, and I wished I could be as relaxed around him as I was around Taco.

When we got to the local food court (which was, by the way, a brand new concept at the time in my town) and sat down, Dave totally changed. There was no more joking, there was no more easy manner. He got all nervous and serious.

Do you all see where this is going? Do you see what I am about to say? How the hell am I always telling you guys stories where I come out looking like an ass?

I was, totally unbeknownst to me, ON A DATE with Dave. He had asked me out, picked me up at my house, and brought me to an eating establishment for a textbook date. And I had no friggin' idea that it was happening. Because he was just DAVE. Jokester. Friend-guy. No smouldering eyes. No acid-washed clad ass.

I sat there and remained oblivious to this date the entire time. I did not catch up. And you guys, it gets worse. In my state of Taco-smog that I was sitting in, I started asking Dave about it. Does Taco mention me? What did he say after the Holiday Inn night? Do you think he's going to ask me out?

Looking back on this whole shipwreck, I still feel awful. Because I have to realize that this was probably the story of Dave's life, having Taco as a best friend. The girls, they must have all gone for Taco, and he must have just had to accept it, all the while knowing that he was the better dude. Smarter, funnier, nicer. Aw Dave. I was an ass. I know better now.

After that date was over, Dave never talked to me much after that. And I did end up having more escapades with Taco in the weeks before he finally got back together with his girlfriend. And after he got back together with his girlfriend and forgot about me, he started man-whoring it up all over school behind her back and I never could look at him quite the same again.

The lesson? Andie should have gone for Duckie. Angela Chase should have been with Brian Crackow. And I am stupid enough to go on dates without knowing I am there. For all I know, I am on a date right now. I should probably go check.

Well look at that. I go all the way through November, posting like a, um, crazy posting lady, and then December hits and whammo! I drop off the face of the earth. Did you miss me? Huh, huh, did ya?

My lack of posting has nothing whatsoever to do with the end of NaBloPoMo (that word never stops sounding dirty, does it?). I have only one thing on my mind these days, and that is weather and traffic. I guess that's two things. Whatever. The point is. I think of nothing and do nothing that is unrelated to traffic and weather these days and really, who wants to read about traffic and weather? I mean, isn't weather what one talks about when there's nothing left to say? It's like, the banter that you say to people who you don't have anything in common with. It's right up there with how about those Mets or did you hear about Britney or TGIF. And I don't want to do filler-talk with you guys.

So, instead, I will hearken back and tell you a little story about a boy named Taco. It's a holiday story. Ready?

When I was in 10th grade, I auditioned for varsity choir. The choir in my high school was supposed to be a Really Big Deal and making it in at all, much less as a lowly 10th grader, was nothing to sneeze at. And if you were a star in this choir (which I never was), that was better than being a star on the football team, or the class president, or whatever other bullshit high school popularity thing you may have up your sleeve. It's only now that I see how weird and unusual this is. What kind of high school deifies the kid who can sing a Mozart mass the best? Isn't that kind of strange?

So I made it in to this weird little culty club, and there was this tenor that sat in the row behind me. I called him Taco. I called him Taco because the word sounded punny when paired with his last name, and also because then I could make all sorts of lewd taco-related jokes with my friends about him (taco meat, taco meat between the shell, sour cream...high school humor rawks). Taco was a senior. Not only was he a senior, but he was the best singer in the choir. He was that guy. He was my Jake Ryan. I was mad about him. Cuckoo for cocoa puffs insane.

I can't tell you, even to this day, why I was so in love with him. I was not one to go gaga over boys like that. I dated them, thought this one or that one was cute, but I wasn't a groupie type. I thought girls who tripped all over themselves over a boy were stoopid. But the power of Taco was too much for me. I can honestly say that I have never in my life, before him nor after him, ever, obsessed so acutely over a dude like I did over him. All I can attribute this to was that perhaps my pubescent hormones just kicked in and he happened to be the target? I don't know.

I befriended Taco. He sat behind me in choir every day, and we would talk. I still remember the conversations we would have. There was nothing to them. At all. For instance, we had a whole running conversation about the colloquialism "you can like it or you can lump it." We thought this was hysterically funny and would say it to each other about any situation. Deep, right? And I would go home, every night, and write in my journal every word that he ever spoke to me. Every word. Not only that, I would write down what he was wearing, every single day. I still have this strange catalog of Taco happenings. "He was wearing his acid washed jeans today and boy did his ass look NICE." Ladies and gentlemen, this may have been the first thing the future librarian ever catalogued. Taco's outfits. What's the LCSH for that?

Although I never got my hands on Taco for real, there were moments that we shared that were so full of messed up teen sexual tension of the Welcome to the Dollhouse variety that I feel like we almost had a relationship, in a way. I had thrilling moments with Taco. For instance (and I can't believe I am about to tell you about this one as it makes me look slightly pervy but who wasn't slightly pervy when they were 15?), the number 69 was a big number for us in high school, as I am sure it is for everyone in high school. We used that number for everything, because we thought it was SO FRICKIN' HILARIOUS. Examples...

Teen #1: Dude, when do you have to go home?Teen #2: Six or nine o' clock. Either one.Haw haw haw haw haaaaaaaw!

Or

Teen #1: God that test was hard. I know I failed it.Teen #2: I bet you got about 69 percent on it.Haw haw haw haaaaaaw!

You see what I'm saying? It was 69 everything. Extra funny points if you could slip in saying sixty-nine to an adult with a straight face without them realizing what you were doing.

I was not above such tomfoolery. I said the magic number as much as the next person. Except the difference for me was, I didn't know why it was so funny. I had no idea what 69 meant. Isn't that sweet and innocent? I want to pat my 15-year-old head like a little fuzzy puppy for that. I knew it was something dirty, but I didn't exactly know the details. I thought it was something slightly sexual, but had no idea what it was for reals.

So you know what I did? I tried to flirt with Taco by confessing to him that I didn't know what 69 was. And I asked him if he would please explain it to me.

That day in choir, we all stood up to sing. And when I sat back down after the song was over, there was something on my chair. It was a note! From TACO. Oh my word. We were acquaintances, not friends who wrote each other notes! He was taking the acquaintanceship to the next level. What did it say?

The note didn't SAY anything. It just had the numbers 6 and 9 drawn out next to each other, and then, next to that there was a...drawing. Of two people. Two people who were doing the sixing and the nining. To each other.

Taco. Drew me. A diagram.

I crumpled up the note and freaked the fuck out. THAT is what 6 and 9 is? Ohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygod. I was mortified beyond mortified. How could I ever talk to Taco again? I thought I was going to die. Not metaphorically die. Literally melt into the floor and croak.

But you know what else? Besides the imminent kick-the-bucket-ness? The note gave me a thrill. Taco and I had shared a moment. A freaky deaky, jacked up, non-sex-but-sexish moment.

I know what you're thinking right about now. You're wondering what the hell I meant when I said at the beginning of this story that it was a "holiday story." What kind of weirdo holiday am I talking about, is what you're thinking. This is not a Hallmark Channel Original type story. This is bordering on the Skinamax channel. Hold on, though, I haven't gotten to the holiday part yet. In fact, I think I may have to hold off on that part of the story, because this post is getting way too long and I have to go and you know, live my life and stuff. So I will finish telling you about Taco and the holiday part of our flirtation next time. Wow, I don't think I have ever done a two-parter blog post before. Look at me, being all wordy!

Until next time then, my friends. Taco, Part II. Sorry to give you only part of the story and run. How much is left, you ask?